Mexico | Page 2 | The Common

“Open Air”

April 26, 2013 Studio

Artist: RAFAEL LOZANO-HEMMER
Curated by JULIA COOKE

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, “Open Air, Relational Architecture”, 2012. Commissioned by the Association for Public Art, Philad

Twenty-four searchlights, all high-powered, were set on rooftops around Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway last September and October. They were programmed, however, to avoid shining their spotlights on any physical objects: no buildings, no naked windows, no trees. Instead, they glimmered straight up into the sky: twenty-four columns of light responding — here solid, there faint, twitching and beating and sweeping across the sky together, then separating — to the voices of Philadelphia residents.

A Feria

September 19, 2012 Dispatches

By ROLF YNGVE

People would tell us to go see the big tree, and finally we flagged ourselves into one of the cheap cabs that go between Santa Maria del Tule and Oaxaca de Juarez on a set route. It was getting dark early under an overcast sky, the remains from tropical storm Ernesto, who had petered out after making some news in the Yucatan.

We found the big tree, a knob made for the grip of some great giant who could use it to lift the entire town – the entire state – out of the Mexican ground. It seemed to squat between the mayoral offices and the church. All the nearby buildings clung to earth like the homes of dwarves.

Five Things About Mexico City (for Cinco de Mayo)

May 2, 2012 Dispatches

By LYNNE WEISS

1) Five Names: Before it was destroyed by Cortez, the Aztec city that stood where Mexico City is today was called 1) Tenochtitlan. In the late 18th century the city was known as the 2) City of Palaces because of the grand mansions built by wealthy nobles and merchants. Today it is 3) Ciudad de Mexico or, as the capital of the nation, the 4) Distrito Federal, or 5) Mexico, D.F. (like Washington, DC).

Gabo and Me

February 15, 2012 Dispatches

By GINA LUJAN BOUBION

The high stone wall guarding Gabriel García Márquez’s vacation house in the hills of Cuernavaca, Mexico was a foot thick and topped with broken glass. Bougainvillea spilled over the top and formed a magenta canopy over the wall’s wooden door.

Macario

November 1, 2011 Fiction, Issue 02, Issue 02 Fiction, Translation

By JUAN RULFO

Translated by ILAN STAVANS and HAROLD AUGENBRAUM

I’m sitting by the sewer waiting for the frogs to come out. Last night, while we were having dinner, they started kicking up a huge ruckus and didn’t stop singing until dawn. That’s what my godmother says, too: that the frogs’ shouting scared her sleep away. And she’d like to sleep now. That’s why she told me to sit here, near the sewer, waiting with a board in my hand so that I can smash to smithereens any frog that hops out … Frogs are green all over, except for their bellies. Toads are black. My godmother’s eyes are black, too. Frogs are good to eat. You shouldn’t eat toads; but I’ve eaten them, too, though you’re not supposed to, and they taste the same as frogs.

Buttons

April 13, 2011 Dispatches

By JESSICA ADAMS

In a long, low building with a tin roof, people from this village turn clamshells into buttons. Beyond the broken windows lie middens of clamshells, punctuated with precise and uniform holes. The gravel mixes with broken shells and thick, pale unfinished buttons.

All posts tagged: Mexico

“Open Air”

A Feria

Five Things About Mexico City (for Cinco de Mayo)

Gabo and Me

Macario

Buttons

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